Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.

Gustave Flaubert

Bright as live coals in the gloom.

Commonplace as a street pavement.

Crowding one another like a flock of black goats scurrying down the hills.

Dreary as an empty house.

Gasping … like a trout after water on a kitchen table.

Gleamed as funeral lamps in a sepulchral chamber.

Golden as the sunlight.

Immaculate as Tanit.

Immovable as a leopard crouching in the jungle.

Immovable as a picture.

Indistinct like the echo of a symphony dying away.

Keen as arrows.

Motionless as a king’s mummy in a catacomb.

Pale as a moonbeam.

Quivered like a harp of which the strings are ready to spring.

Rosy as the dawn.

Shaken as by a shudder.

Shining as a saint on a holy pyx.

Her heart beat more and more slowly, more gently and uncertainly, like a spring which is growing exhausted, like an echo which is sinking away.

Smooth and shining, as a sword out of a sheath.

Snug as a parson.

Splendid as the sun.

Sprawling … like a cowherd taking a siesta.

Struggling like a captive dove which wishes to resume its flight.

Swelled like a sail by the sea-breeze.

Terrible as the god of war.

Unmoved as a statue.

Vanish as mist before the sun.

Felt all her being vibrate as if a violin bow were drawn over her nerves.